


Practice Makes Perfect

by gerbilfluff



Category: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:56:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gerbilfluff/pseuds/gerbilfluff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turbo had to learn his tricks somewhere, didn't he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practice Makes Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES: So, for those of you who didn't spend the 90s loitering in the local arcade...
> 
> This is Baron von Blubba.  
> http://www.giantbomb.com/baron-von-blubba/94-10958/
> 
> AKA "that thing that would show up if you took too long in a level of Bubble Bobble, and everyone would FLIP. OUT. 'cause nothing could harm it, but one touch was an insta-kill for you."
> 
> This is Smoke, as he looked in Mortal Kombat 3.  
> http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Smoke-r.gif
> 
> And in motion, complete with his most infamous fatality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knMFNyMA45Q
> 
> There's a bunch of other versions of the character in later games/movies, but this is the one where he's a robot.
> 
> LEGALESE: I don't own "Wreck-It Ralph," nor any of the characters. No profit's being made from this file. NOW PRESS START ALREADY
> 
> \-----

Practice Makes Perfect  
by Apricot the Gerbil  
  
  
Chapter One: Flawless Victory  
  
 _1995._  
  
When Tapper clinks the glass down before him, Smoke can only stare at it, giving the bartender a confused-sounding whirr from his circuits. "Compliments of the Baron," Tapper tells the cyborg, and nods towards the end of the row of bar stools.  
  
Taking the hint, Smoke glances down the line of patrons to see a-- a whale? A white ghost whale...? Hard to tell, with some of the older characters around here... meeting his gaze head-on. One giant pink eye disappears in a wink, then pops back with a faint _blip_.  
  
Smoke gives the free drink another look. A cocktail, it looks like. Bright purple. Old school, too; three square bubbles hang static inside the glass.  
  
He tips it back, letting it drain down the slots in his faceplate. Notices the blob-whale start drifting towards his seat, floating with leisurely right-angle turns.  
  
This is not where Smoke expected his evening to go tonight, but he's feeling daring.  
  
"A little hedgehog told me there was a new game in town," the ghost/whale/whatever says with a sing-song lilt. "With an unlockable secret character, even. Have the players found you yet?"  
  
Smoke's caught off-guard at how deep his admirer's voice is, but he replies with a shake of his head and a shrug anyhow.  
  
"No? That's too bad. Well, they'll figure it out sooner or later. They always do." A pause. "So they're already up to Mortal Kombat _3_ , eh? The kids sure do love fighting games nowadays."  
  
When Smoke nods his agreement, the whale's eye bobs upwards, taking in the curls of black vapor rising out silently from between the plates of his armor.  
  
"I see you're the quiet type," the whale says, floating closer... almost too close. Whispers to Smoke's earpiece, "I _like_ that."  
  
The ninja's only response is a firmer grip on the counter's edge, as whatever that purple stuff was kicks in with a glow that sends tingles through his pixels. His admirer's voice wavers in and out of focus: "Name's Baron von Blubba, by the way. From the Bubble Bobble three consoles down. But my place's been awfully dusty lately. Mind if we go back to your game instead?"  
  
The Baron's lower jaw unhinges from what Smoke assumed was a body, revealing a hot pink slab of a tongue. Which starts lapping lazily along Smoke's shoulder. Out for anyone in the bar to see.  
  
A nervous whine rises from Smoke's faceplate. He catches Tapper's eye, only to get a chuckle and a knowing smirk as the barman wipes down the mug in his hands.  
  
Smoke's hands curl to fists without thinking, as he struggles to remember how to pull off a combo punch.  
  
Blubba notices. "I cut to the chase pretty fast. I know," he purrs. "If you'd rather I get lost, I can play that way, too. Whattaya say, tall-dark-'n-handsome? Want me to show you a proper welcome?"  
  
Smoke thinks this over.  
  
He raises the empty cocktail glass to the Baron and jiggles it.  
  
Blubba's smile blips wider. He coughs once. Spits a small gem bracelet onto the counter.  
  
"Oh, Tapper! Be a dear and refresh this fine fellow's drink, won't you?"  
  
\------  
  
He finds Sub-Zero by the dartboards. Figures. Being able to form icicle darts means his co-worker's been milking the talent ever since. Tonight's audience is a short guy in a handyman's uniform and what looks to be another fighting-game gal in a neon green jumpsuit.  
  
"No, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I just don't see why there's gotta be so much... blood 'n guts, 'n all. Seems uncalled for," the little man's saying before Sub-Zero spots him.  
  
"Smoke! Bud-dy! There you are." His fellow ninja claps him on the back. "Hey, this is Felix Junior and..."  
  
Shorty raises his hand, waggling it awkwardly as he cuts in. "It's _Fix-It_ Felix Junior, actually. From the game 'Fix-It Felix Junior.'"  
  
"...Right," Sub-Zero deadpans, hurrying to move on. "And this is... Stop me if I'm getting it wrong, 'B. Orchid'? She can turn into a _jaguar!_ You've gotta see this..."  
  
Smoke shakes his head and points a thumb over his shoulder to the Baron, hovering patiently behind them.  
  
"Oh," says Sub-Zero, raising an eyebrow. _"Oh_. Got it. I'll, uh... catch you back at the console, then." His voice dips to a whisper. "You _dog_. I didn't know you were an 8-bit chaser."  
  
\------  
  
Smoke doesn't know where this Baron character found the shiny yellow star with eyes he'd coughed up when they arrived at Smoke's own dungeon level. All he knows is that the thing flashes when it's turned on, it _vibrates_ , and the Baron's been snuggling it against Smoke's metal codpiece since they came in. Even as he sank to his knees from the feel of it. And then flat onto his back, making sounds he didn't know he could make. It feels _amazing_.  
  
Those dark pink eyes are still staring up at him from between his legs, every time the ninja thinks to look. Over the faint twinkly fanfare coming from the star, he hears Blubba murmuring, "Lemme hear it. Lemme hear the big bad fighter feel good..."  
  
Miyamoto help him, he's never wanted a voicebox as badly as he does now. All he can do is let his head roll back and screech static through his circuits, grabbing for the back of Blubba's head to pull him and his toy even closer.  
  
"That's right. Big bad fighter hasn't felt this good in his _life_. Needth a _real_ game to show him who's number one, don't you."  
  
He barely notices the lisp creeping in. The smoke wisps flying off from his body trail thinner, puff wide, in time with the heaves wracking his body.  
  
"That's it. Show me who'th the best. Do it." Blubba's tongue licks down his inner thigh. "Show me..."  
  
Garbled nonsense. Howling out of him. All he can do is grab Blubba tight and hope nobody else is around to hear him as... _something_ shakes through him... harder than a reset. He could swear his pixels go fuzzy at the edges.  
  
The Baron gulps the star back into his maw, taking its fanfare with it. Lets Smoke lie there in the silence for a moment, quivering like his colleagues do when they've had their bones punched out of them.  
  
"Told you," Blubba says with a grin that splits across his whole head.  "Think that was fun? Ooh _hoo_. Just you wait."  
  
What. _What_ could feel better than that.  
  
Smoke watches the little whale tug at his belt with that glorious mouth... only to give him a sigh. "Oh, you poor thing. You weren't coded to have anything under your clothes, were you?"  
  
Smoke can only offer a sinking whirr. Was he supposed to?  
  
"No big deal. I can fix that, too." Blubba smirks even wider. "But there's somewhere you need to take me, first."  
  
\------  
  
He has no idea what Blubba's been doing in that room he disappeared into, but he's still pretty sure it shouldn't be taking this long.  
  
Smoke slumps even further down the wall he's been leaning against this whole time. He really should've asked to keep that star _with_ him during the wait.  
  
The walls crackle and go blurry around him, but the time Smoke notices his legs aren't on the ground anymore, it's too late. All he can do is bat the white flipper-nubs at his sides where muscled metal arms were just moments ago.  
  
He's back in the dungeon level. Floating... in the Baron's body? How--?!  
  
Smoke jerks through the air, making a right-angle zigzag for the doorway. This is wrong. He has to warn someone. He has to--  
  
He smacks against... nothing he can see... like a fly against an invisible windshield. Floating up from the ground where he's fallen, he tries another rush-- and again, the very pixels around him seem to block his path.  
  
Two hands grasp at the level's doorway, from the outside. Two very _familiar_ hands. It takes Smoke a moment to process where he's seen that same shade of dark purple before. And by then, his own body's stepping towards him, trailing steaming vapor and looming over his present height by head and shoulders. He's never seen his own face before, much less been stared down by it.  
  
"It _worked,"_ Smoke's body breathes. It gives a giddy cackle, then tugs at his belt, eyes searching for something below the waistband. "Hnn. Still not perfect. But it's finally the right color! Turbo- _tastic...!"_  
  
Hearing his seducer's merry voice coming from himself-- from _not himself_ \-- rattles Smoke so badly, he can only quake and wobble in midair. That, and… his head is silver? He always figured it was purple and black, like the rest of him…  
  
Not-Smoke shakes its head at the blob Smoke's trying desperately to pilot. "I can't believe you _fell_ for that. You fighters are tho _gullible!"_  
  
Smoke's used to flurries of blood launching out wherever his fists hit home. Never has he run headlong into another's skull and bounced off like a marshmallow, much less with such an undignified squeak noise.  
  
"Aww. What're you so upset about? I kept my promise. See?" Smoke's imposter's hands slip below his current whale-jaw, sliding down an invisible trouserline. A strange pink rod flops out to dangle from the bottom edge of his pixels, huge enough in proportion to have Smoke sinking to the ground from the weight of it, flapping his two useless flipper-nubs in surprise.  
  
"'Custer'th Revenge,'" his body leers to him. "Old Man Litwack hooked it up to the mainframe a few years ago. It was an okay game, I guess. Even if that Custer guy was a real jerk... Nobody missed _him_. But with enough asking around, I found a way to copy the fun parts."  
  
It reaches out with Smoke's own hands to lift the mass of pink sagging pendulously underneath him-- only to dart them back, as a crackle of 1s and 0s scatter over the pixels, angry red. A jagged pink rectangle jerks to the right from the rest of it, then blinks back into place, and Smoke _feels_ it shift. He's praying that high-pitched squeal didn't just come out of him.  
  
His imposter sounds more annoyed than frightened. "Shoot… This one, too?"  
  
But the hands return, stroking up and down Smoke's new limb with an expert's aim. Petting right under the bulbous lump at the top. Rolling one fingertip against a ridge there, over and over again. "Never figured out what this thing's supposed to be, but it feels _so. rad._ when you rub it, doesn't it?"  
  
Smoke shivers at the touch. Hears a plink, as his eyes squeeze shut… and he utters the most furious grinding noise he can, lashing his blobby head back and forth, not only in rage, but because damn it _IT DOES really feel THAT GOOD_.  
  
"Don't thank me, fighter boy," his body chuckles to him, giving one last finger-tickle over the length of it. "It's the least I can do, what with you helping me out. I've got to lay low somewhere."  
  
And with a snap of metal fingers, all Smoke can do is gape in mute horror as pixels spasm and part from each other in a rippling wave. Suddenly, his body isn't _his_ body anymore, either.  
  
He'd only heard the gossip once since his game arrived, surely not enough to remember a name. But Smoke sees the white helmet, pallor-grey skin, sunken yellow eyes, and he knows, feels a shiver deep down in his code: this is the one the other games whisper about. The one who got unplugged. The _game-jumper_.

"You might not be up to speed on the hithtory around here, so I'll be nice and let you know the score," Turbo says, pointing to Smoke dismissively. "You fighters? You're a _plague_. You're _confusing_ those poor kids until they don't know what's good anymore." He sneers. "I'd like to see all these new fighters take on a left-hand turn at a hundred miles an hour. See how much of their fancy health bars they've got left after a _real_ challenge!"

With a fold of his arms, Turbo hunkers down to stare at Smoke on the same level, eye to giant pink eye. "But the players… I trust 'em. They're too smart to be duped for long. You just wait and see I'm right-- they'll realize racing games are where it's at again. And when they do…" He stabs his chest with his thumb. "I'll be ready for 'em."

He relaxes somewhat, reaching to give Smoke a pat on the head so gentle it's disarming. "No hard feelings about recoding you as a glitch 'till then. Can't have you spoiling things early. But look on the bright side! There's the upgrade I wrote for you, and you've got Baron von Blubba's body! He's _invincthible!_ D'you have any idea how hard it is to find someone who can survive in _any game?"_

Turbo digs the star toy out from a pocket in his jumpsuit. "Just wish I knew where he found this," he remarks. "I may've learned how to hollow out his code, but I don't know how to copy what he had on him. Not yet."

The gamejumper pauses. A grin peels his face, showing yellow teeth. "Say. _You're_ going to have plenty of time on your hands, right?"

With a spank from Turbo's palm, the star shudders to life. He sets it down next to Smoke, then stands, strutting to the dungeon exit. Back comes the sleek cyborg warrior's body, shimmering into place over the blood-red 'T' on Turbo's helmet. "Hold that thought, will you? I've got a great idea."

  
Smoke's alone.

He narrows dark pink eyes at the star as it buzzes and flashes to itself, piping its grating little fanfare.

He glares at it.

And _glares_.

With a choked, quiet sob, he drags his bloated new limb over to plop down on top of it and starts rocking away.

\------

**Author's Note:**

> (to be continued in Chapter Two: Brutality)
> 
> And just in case anyone thinks I made up that game Turbo’s getting his ‘source code’ from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer%27s_Revenge


End file.
